Dr. Meyer Named NEH Summer Scholar

Written by Karen L. Bystrom

April 24, 2017

Dr. Allison Machlis Meyer, Assistant Professor in Seattle University’s English Department, has been selected as a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar from a national applicant pool to attend one of 24 seminars and institutes. Each summer, the NEH supports these enrichment opportunities at colleges, universities, and cultural institutions, to allow faculty to work in collaboration and study with experts in humanities disciplines.

“I am excited to participate in this NEH program because doing so will help me better serve the needs of Seattle University students,” says Dr. Meyer. “One of my goals for the Institute is to develop a syllabus for our English major’s new 'Encountering Intercultural Literatures' course, a sophomore-level class designed to provide an introduction to literatures that engage cultural boundaries and social differences and that feature significant intersections of race, gender, sexuality, class, and global history. This institute, which provides an extended study of the early modern period through “the lens of exchange, interaction, and movement” and a decentering of Eurocentric narratives, will directly contribute to my development of this new course.

She continues, “My other goal for the Institute is to work on an emerging book project that considers how the intertextuality of compiled volumes—bound books that bring together separately printed texts—uniquely contributes to early modern discourses about racial and religious difference.”